The only past that Dial of Destiny is interested in plundering is the glory of its predecessors.
Doug Liman’s sci-fi action thriller remains one of the most enjoyable American blockbusters of the previous decade.
Flag Day is little more than a near-two-hour montage of tear-streaked faces melodramatically shouting at each other.
James Mangold’s film mostly plays to nostalgic reveries of the auto industry’s golden age.
A beautiful presentation of a film that merges the tropes of the 007 series with a startlingly expressive aesthetic.
There’s much to admire here, from its symbolically sickly aesthetic to its clearly shot action sequences.
The film is a lightly dramatized case file that’s structurally averse to world-building and psychological portraiture.
It’s an intelligent, self-reflexive summer blockbuster with an eye for castigating proliferate franchise mentalities.
As if taking a cue from its own title, the movie emphatically sets its sights on the upward trajectory of Brown’s career.
Tom Cruise turns the series of false starts, dead ends, and hard lessons into a working metaphor for his own career.
The film is less manic, goofy, and memorable than an Oliver Stone spin on the Wilson-Plame affair would likely have turned out.
Fuck the Ides of March.